Podcast

Is your dream to live, or continue living, in France? It is possible as a non-EU citizen, without needing to get married or become a student to make it happen.

American Allison Lounes lives in France. She runs the website Paris Unraveled, and she helps people to navigate French administration - like visa applications - in a way that’s much less stressful than going it alone.

Allison’s going to talk through the main options for non-Europeans; from getting PACSed to moving off a student visa, being sponsored by a company or going it alone as self-employed. And she’s going to explain what you need to put into your application to make your French dream a reality.

Bec Holmes moved to a village in the Austrian mountains, where she fell in love with a Dutchman and relocated to the Netherlands. After a few years, marriage happened, and then she became pregnant.

The first pregnancy is daunting for any woman, but add a foreign country and language into the mix, and there are a lot of unknowns. Bec has navigated pregnancy in the Netherlands twice now, and she has some great insights to share.

Did you know that the country you choose to divorce in can directly impact what assets you’re left with? Or that being an unmarried expat couple is a legal issue in some countries? Do you know how the laws of the country you’re living in apply to your children, if you’re having custody issues?

Our guest in this episode of the Expat Focus podcast is Alexandra Tribe - a lawyer, and the owner of Expatriate Law, who specialise in family law advice for British expats. She’s going to talk though three common legal situations that expats can find themselves in.

If you’re a Brit in Europe, or a European citizen living in the UK, the issue of Brexit will be high on your radar. At the time of recording this, there are just six months to go until the UK leaves the European Union, and there’s still no deal.

European leaders at a summit in Salzburg just shot down the UK Prime Minister’s latest plan, so everyone’s gone back to the drawing board. There have been ‘no deal’ planning papers released, and right now, that prospect is looking like a scary reality.

So where does Brexit leave citizens’ rights, on both sides of the Channel? And what can expats in the UK and Europe be doing now, to best prepare?

Today’s guest is Daniel Tetlow, Co-founder of the organisation British in Germany, and a member of British in Europe. And - spoiler alert - he doesn’t have definitive answers, no one does right now, but he does explain why he and others are working so hard to get them. You’re going to hear Daniel mention the name ‘Michel Barnier' a few times in this interview - he’s the EU’s Chief Brexit negotiator. And you’ll find all the useful links that Daniel mentions, listed in our show notes.

When it comes to taking your career to Luxembourg – where do you begin? What are the main industries for expat workers in the country and, what sort of salaries can you expect? Do you need to speak one of the key languages, or can you get by with English?

You’re going to learn all about the Luxembourg job market in this episode. Our guest is Amy Amann, a local coach, trainer and consultant. So keep listening for some great insights and advice, on looking for work in Luxembourg.

Going it alone as self employed and setting up your own business is always a big step – and it’s an even bigger one to take, when you’re doing it in a foreign country.

British expat Michelle Purse Sweeney did it in Germany 9 years ago, starting her own marketing business, and in this episode she shares her 5 key tips to help make your German business journey, a little bit easier.

When it came time to think about retiring, Ben Zabulis and his partner Hillary quickly realised that the typical European expat retiree destinations, like Spain, weren’t quite right for them.
Instead, they sold up in the UK and moved to Hong Kong; a place that had captured their hearts years before.
Ben’s a regular columnist for Expat Focus, and he joins me in this episode to talk about how he’s settled back into expat life.

In this episode we're focusing on tax issues for South African expats. Did you know they’re on track to break their own emigration record this year?

And the biggest mistake expats can make, according to today’s guest, is thinking they’re not a big enough 'fish' for the South African Revenue Office to bother coming after. You won’t just disappear off their radar once you leave the country.

Attorney and Financial Emigration Legal Specialist Jonty Leon is going to explain why sorting out your South African tax situation is just as important as deciding what comes with you when you move abroad.

In this week's podcast, Expat Focus talks to John Siskar about his experience of teaching in Germany. Having moved from being a kindergarten teacher all the way through to secondary school, John has a wealth of experience to share!

What can you expect as a foreign teacher working in Germany? And what do you do when your school goes bankrupt? American expat John Siskar wasn’t planning to dive into an international teaching career when he went travelling six years ago. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to later find himself with an almost empty bank account. Today on the show, John shares his insights into teaching in Germany, and explains how he navigated a really difficult situation.